In societies with a high emphasis on the military, something similar to a code of honour, or rules of conduct, eventually develops and saturates the culture; or, at least, the warrior class, whoever they may be. The most famous example of this is the bushido of japanese samurai, but there is also the Code of Chivalry in the west and so forth.

The purpose of these codes of honour are twofold.1) They make the soldiers feel better about themselves. Most human cultures frown on the things soldiers have to do; as a result, many soldiers feel a moral dissonance after a while and may develop mental illnesses. Having a Code of Honour that includes sparing your defeated enemies, not using underhanded methods and so forth allows warriors to continue feeling fine about themselves.2) Most such codes of honour include loyalty and service to a lord of some kind. This develops because large bodies of armed men are prone to thinking about how much better they can do things, so encouraging loyalty is a good idea.

Now, in a fantasy world, particularly the standard fantasy game world, people crop up who use necromancy, both in a traditional wizardy sense and also in the form of various deathknights and so on. But although necromancy is evil, it is useful, and from a moral standpoint it may be possible to consider it no worse than murder or rape or wanton destruction or other things that people get up to just by going to war with each other. They can serve their community or nation as well.

So, /tg/. What would a necromancer's code of honour - a "necroshido", if you will - be like?

Any kind of reverence to death should be kicked out of the window, unless the structure is very small people who reanimate the dead on a regular basis won't care about whose body they raise (perhaps there would be rules against reanimating the clergy and royalty though, given that it may count as sacrilege. ) and necromancers aren't exactly the most organized bunch to begin with. Not killing without provacation, however, is a likely option and keeps the society from further shunning an already suspicious group. If a necromancer begins wantonly killing innocents to raise them back as servants, another necromancer may go against him just to prevent general hostility against the whole job.

Like other complicated occupations in medieval era (medicine, law, religion) necromancers would be expected to keep their trade a secret, so necromancy books would be written in some dead language and translation to more common tongues would be implicitly forbidden.

If there is an organized, widespread "Necromancer guild", there may also be places they would gather their undead armies so they can act covertly in their labs without being distracted by the stench of their rotting servants and villager mobs with pitchforks burning their houses because of that stench. Those places would be like stables and you would pay a small fine for the binding spells and embalming materials that will keep decay away from your constructs.

And, of course, the stresses placed on these codes and the people who live by them in a extreme war. Having to 'convert' friends, loved ones and random bodies shipped back from the front, in opposition to 'freely given or sold' bodies.

As the predominant military order.... I could see a way they could maintain control and keep moral high.

1. Death is not the end. All citizens who die, will be reanimated to protect their families and friends who still live.2. No body left behind. The fallen are not left behind. Their bones shall not be used by the enemy. They will be reconstituted into new undead.3. The living are the backbone of our society. The Necromancer is sworn to protect them, guiding the dead to best facilitate this. They are your saviors, and will save you when the enemy try to take you.4. The fallen enemy. Those who once sought to kill us, will be reanimated and added to our ranks. In this way they attone for their crimes and serve our society.5. The living are not required to serve in the military. Their duty is to live life. To work, socialize and propegate. Without the children, there can be no new soldiers in the future. As such, civilians are above all else to be protected.6. Necromancers are serving the greatest duty of our society, and deserve the respect of such individuals. Praise them, for they have given up the joys of life, in order to serve our society as its unblinking eye and tireless arms. Their swords will never faulter in your defense.

These codes should lead to a point where the civilians live much like the romans did. However, as the undead armies need not food and water, the resource drain is much lower.

I would also suggest that within the culture, it would be encouraged to celebrate undeath. Families might add new ribbons to their undead family members who serve in the military. In this way, more heavily "decorated" undead would denote those who are vetrans of many battles.

Possibly, the families might even make special masks and such for their honored undead. To make them more visually pleasing to the masses.

To elaborate. Karrnath is a country with a strong military history. During the last war, hey started suffering from high casualties and famine. Their salvation came in the form of a faith known as the Blood of Vol. The faith posited that gods were not to be worshipped (in this setting, there is no afterlife) and that divinity and the secrets of immortality lie in blood.

Intelligent undead are those who give up their blood to attain a "false" immortality so they can continue the search for the real kind (think of a Buddha staving off or abandoning Nirvana in order to help others attain it). Mindless undead are just animated corpses.

The Blood of Vol brings methods that help the people of Karrnath grow enough food to feed their people, and give them the secrets of Necromancy, allowing them to revive some of their best soldiers to continue serving their country. The faith grows in popularity.

Eventually, the leader of the faith (Vol) secretly approaches the king (Kaius) and eventually turns him into a Vampire. Then Vol shows that the whole time, she intended to try and gain control and influence over the country, and activates the King's bloodlust, causing him to kill his family.

The King gets pissed and after the war, stops promoting the Blood of Vol as the national faith. He even begins to actively oppose the efforts of its higher members who are allied with Vol. Meanwhile, the average person in Karrnath continues following the basic tenets, which include sacrifice for others and the idea that by becoming Undead, you're making yourself useful to the community instead of being just another corpse.

Too broad a concept to say anything definitive. Look at warrior's codes of honor- they tend to have some similarities, but ultimately they vary as much as the locations they arise in. Loyalty to higher powers is about the only thing that tends to always find its way into these things, and even that might be partially because codes that don't either aren't accepted by the reigning authority and therefore stay small, or have them edited in and then accepted by the reigning authority.

Well, there is the "keep feeling good about yourselves" angle. What sort of traditions would necromancers develop - aside from absolute detachment or callousness - to mitigate the negative effects of the practice on their sense of self-esteem?

Most Necromancers you see in media either have the absolute remorseless evil thing going, or the cold, logical "for science!" mindset. But what rules could you build up around the practice to make it more acceptable, to have a sense of "I'm doing the right thing" when you do it?

>>3501542Let's see, they think of themselves as the loving shepherds of the dead? They don't just raise their servants callously, but learn their names or give them new ones and remember each and everyone of them so they can be given a proper burial once they are no longer fit for service. The dead are treated with respect and honor, most of all by their necromancer, people will try their best to get a well liked necromancer to accept their family members taken care of by him.

Maybe a clause that says that necromancers don't have to be raised on death, letting them slip service if they choose.

Chivalry and Bushido both encouraged warriors to expend their energy on creative tasks outside of battle, flower arranging\faith\poetry in order to balance them out. Maybe the Necromancer has to have a few ranks in something peaceful to have as a hobby?

If they're are intelligent dead, then what's stopping them from having a relationship with their soldiers like any other commanding officer would?

>>3501674I greatly enjoy the idea of a respectful cooperation between intelligent undead warriors and necromancers that act as their medics. Such people would not only be educated in necromancy, but also basic medical knowledge (though this is presumably a part of necromantic studies to begin with), herbs/chemicals/potions that prevent decay and simple battle/survival skills. Perhaps make it so that the undead cannot use necromancy at all, making cooperation with the living a necessity.

The necromancer would be protected foremost, but an undead soldier would be his superior because of longer combat experience/training allowing wiser strategic decisions.

1. All bodies raised will have all distinguishing features hidden at all times. No one what's to know that the zombie that you've rented from the necromancer to plow the fields happens to be grandma Eunice.

Given your minions faceless masks and concealing coverings. With luck, people will start treating them like golems or robots instead the horrors they truly are.

2. BUY the corpses. Always exchange bodies for fair market value.

One thing that must always be paid to families of the deceased is a shiny gem purported to hold the deceased's soul. All attempts must be made to get the family to believe that the soul and the body are now two separate entities.

3. Always pay lip-service to the local governing authority. You may wield the power of death and decay, but villagers are less likely to form pitchfork wielding angry mobs if they know that they can just write an angry letter to the Necromancy Ombudsman.

Actually, go one further. Organize the necromancers into a fully-fledged bureaucracy. Have them issue receipts for organ purchases and make people fill in forms for simple tasks. It's hard for people to retain their soul-chilling dread in the face of piles of paperwork and stamping.

4. Never, ever, EVER aim to use the shock-value of moving corpses, even against hostile forces.

It may well be great to defend your country with masses of vile stitched-together mountains of screaming flesh, but the people on your side will remember what monsters the undead are, beneath their faceless masks. When peace returns, the citizenry will want to engage in 'frank and earnest discussions' on the humane treatment of corpses.

Reanimation is voluntary. With the obvious exception of times of war when you need all the bodies you can get, it is a significant professional error to reanimate unintentionally someone who expressly desired not to be reanimated. Once is a very severe warning to be more careful. Twice, and you are forbidden from private practise permanently and are supervised by a clerk of the Guild for a year in all your works. Three times, and you are banished from the guild and forbidden to practise any form of necromancy for life under pain of death. Deliberately reanimating an unwilling corpse is punishable by death.

This is supported as each citizen of the country wears a bracelet indicating their desire for reanimation. Those who are freely accepting, which is most of society as it is seen as strange to refuse, have a bracelet with a crude face on it. They will be reanimated as soon as expedient upon death, and used wherever suits.

Those with no desire either way have blank bracelets, or none. If so, the bodies will be stored in purpose-built crypts until there is a need for them. This is the source of the undead militia, a small defensive force not so adept as the undead regulars due to further rot and less time awakened (the term for reanimated, use propaganda for these things), but as they are kept out of sight they often completely surprise invading forces. Once they are reanimated they will remain so.

Those with a skull on their bracelet are under Do No Reanimate orders, basically. These bodies will be dealt with as traditional for their religion. These people are rare as it is considered rude to deny others your corpse, and are tolerated in cities with large foreign populations and heavily discriminated against in small villages and towns unused to foreign ideas.

In critical situations the king or whatever can make an Edict of Universal Awakening, which overrides all people's rights to determine their post-mortem fate. Under this edict every corpse, even those with skull bracelets, will be revived. It is meant for extreme emergencies such as massive natural disasters and invasions beyond the regular and reserve awakened's ability to deal with. Once the edict has been repealed, all awakened with skull bracelets who are self-aware will be asked if they wish to be destroyed, and most choose so. Some do not, having changed their beliefs with experience. Unaware ones will be destroyed. After this edict has been declared and repealed, the council of elders or whatever you want to call it vote on whether to keep or remove the king from his position. This is in place to prevent abuse of such laws.

So, yeah, this makes the Necromancers feel better as they are either only reanimating those who want to be reanimated which makes it okay, or they're doing it because there are living lives to save and under the highest earthly authority. That's all the self-justification they probably need.

1. In death their is hope, your family and friends serve in death as your protectors and the guardians of our great society.2. When a civilian becomes a necromancer their family should consider them dead and mourn their loss.3. The dead stick to the dead the living with the living. Necromancers may not interact with the civilians.4.The living are to be protected by the dead at any cost. Even if that means death, for what does death matter to those already in it's embrace.

1. You may not kill for the purpose of making a corpse.2. Only nameless* corpses may be animated without permission.3. Named corpses may be animated only with permission of their family.

*A nameless corpse is an old one you find in a ditch, one with an unmarked grave, or a soldier so wounded that none can tell who he was. A named corpse is somebody who was just alive, a marked grave, or a soldier that could be sent back to his family.

No, I like the idea of necromancer "codes of honour", but I think the OP could've left out his retarded attempt to explain WHY codes of honour emerge in a given society. It's just... wrong on so many levels.

>>3502476It would've been best if you said that in the first place. Without that, it seemed like you were insulting a perfectly valid idea with an inane arguement. Thanks for explaining yourself anyway.

In any case, only those who freely give away their bodies can be reanimated on standard terms. Those who refuse to give away their bodies can only be reanimated when the country is in a state of crisis.

Post-mortem evaluation of corpses involves pricing. Well, of course some corpses are going to be more powerful than others. If you want to be lazy, you could just say that everything is rated by a level system (according to hit dice).

>>3502516Word. Those nations all must be composed of sociopaths and last a total of five minutes before tearing themselves apart. Just because all citizens are equally evil doesn't put them in some kind of stalemate.

My main problem with these codes proposed so far is that they do little to protect the necromancer's peace of mind and burden him with rules instead. I feel like >>3501674 is the closest to a code that would keep necromancers safe instead of treating them as monsters and rehabilitated criminals. Thoughts?

>>3502553I would have them undergo reanimation upon death - becoming a necromancer forfeits your own body to necromancy.Every necromancer needs to send a tithe of 25% of their necromantic servants to the local ruler. Refusal to do so results in the revoking of necromancer status. The rest of the undead that the necromancer has at hand are free for him to use as he wishes unless he is called upon by the local ruler.>>3502573Zwei, now go for drei.

>>3502527Actually, that's a pretty good idea By this code of ethics, it'd make the most sense to make all the most twisted, unsettling undead you need out of nameless corpses. So "nameless undead" could likely be the more horrifying ones, and likely the most powerful ones.

I would have it that to be considered a true citizen you must sign yourself up for the undead army before you die. If you wont serve during life then you can serve during death. Kinda like a down payment on the right to be more than just a serf if you don't want to be in the Army when your alive.

Necromancers would then only allowed to animate dead citizens. Only citizen corpses may be enchanted beyond regular means and with rudimentary sentience. So you could have varying degree's of undead. Empowered with enchantments they could be tireless juggernauts or sleepless guardians.

Maybe something frowning on the use of cannon fodder styled undead, like undeath is a privilege given to the most talented, elite soldiers, to allow them to continue serving their country. Vampire counts as commanders? Maybe for those with crippling disfigurements on death could be granted a conversion of the body to something like the deathknight in your picture, bones being reinforced with metal plating, joints connected with chains and metal threads for protection, along with plated armor. Moving away from messy, rotting undead to a kind of revered undeath (Dreadnought styled?), they could be given royal coat of arms cloaks, and finely crafted death masks made of exotic materials (not meant to inspire fear directly), as a way of exalting them, necromancers serving as a type of clergy/healer class for them. Having them serve as immortal, unrelenting champions on the fields of battle, and as lords of an estate exempt from most temptations.

I have a magocracy in my campaign, where every 60years all the families duke it out for the rulership of the city. So far, a necromancer family has won 4 times in a row, and thus necromancy slowly became comonplace. Now you need your family or best friend to buy your body back from the state when you die, or you are getting preserved and animated as a odorless, decay-free zombie to do cheap labour.

Everyone has money, the streets are always clean, shit gets done with cheap zombie labour, and the undead city guards and completely immune to corruption, not to mention in the last generation, ppl has started to go through the magical process to become free willed undead at a younger age. Why have eternal unlife with the body of a 80 years old man when you can be 20-30 forever?

Almost everyone knows SOME magic, at least a simple prestidigitation to clean yourself up in the morning, or pranks your friends with. If you dont, you are second class and at best can work directing the zombie crews as they dig or drain or build or whatever.

Revered undeath sounds like a good way to go, but something in me raises a red flag when beautification is involved. If you want a ruling class free from mortal desires, wouldn't vanity be a problem with the smooth-faced?

The best use of undead is not for warfare but for menial tasks, they never tire after all.

Mining, transportation, (non-complex) construction and farming.Imagine the crazy economy such a country would have, most people would be into more "advanced" jobs. Artists, engineers, philosophers and of course the esteemed necromancy proffession.Imagine a society were almost everyone knows some necromancy...maybe even have "basic" (talking with spirits and maintaining zombie energy stability or something) necromancy taught in schools. With the more advanced corpse raising stuff taught in specific necromancy colleges. Even better when mixed with crazy religiousness and corpse decoration, sentinent undead advisors and what not. Of course, everyone from that society would strive to earn their eternal unlife as a high-ranking (but never higher than the living, except hobos or something) intelligent undead. Most of the worker undead would be either poor people or people corpses taken in wars. Maybe a egyptian theme?

Necromancers take the place of the Priest, they give last rights and everything. No one "owns" a corpse, so as soon they hit the ground a waiting process begins. Usually around 2-3 months, before the re-animation.

The wealthy are able to buy the bodies of loved ones to see that they don't get reanimated. All peasant bodies are used for unskilled labor. Which the peasantry know nothing about the operation, instead the Necromancers tell the peasantry they are criminals, who are brought back for the good of the people.

This instills fear into the masses, keeping any thought of criminal activity to a minimum. Of course there are soldiers, however they are mostly to keep order, and not to fight. When they die, their corpses are prepared in a special manner in which they retain their intelligence, however none of their memories. They follow orders, the know no fear, and death has no concept.

When not at war, they are lent out to the nobles as guards or hired out as mercenaries. All are however on a "magical cord" and can be called back at anytime.

The Necromancers have a strict hierarchy, from oldest to youngest. The old never die though, as they all become Liches. Should a necromancer ever die (assuming they are still 'alive') they are reanimated as Deathknights. Serving as generals in the military, however unlike the soldiers they retain their memories.

If you wanted to expand on the "honored dead" theme, perhaps have menial zombification be accepted as the price for citizenship and a boon rather than a curse; "glad to be useful", etc., especially if it allows them to have posh living-lives and they probably won't be sentient enough to "suffer" the drudgery.

Perhaps undeath isn't the zombifying process that modern media would have us believe?

The risen can walk, talk, feel and reason just as they did in life. A Nercomancer not only has to be a powerful sorcerer but a persuasive orator too - the dead will not follow him otherwise. Similarly I can see the Risen being keen to loose their now superfilous and rotting flesh, quickly stripping themselves down to the bone.

Officer and a Gentleman (Ex): An Uttercold Assault Necromancer must conduct his villainous acts with restraint, good manners and aplomb. Your code of conduct includes the following:

* Avoid harming innocents and civilians, when feasible. * Be courteous and dignified of bearing (and towards the opposite sex, gallant) at all times. * Graciously accept the surrender of a defeated foe, and treat them with decorum and respect, which means absolutely no torture. * Captured foes may not be summarily slain. You are permitted to test their worthiness by placing them in elaborate conditions almost certain to kill them, as long as those of sufficient character or cleverness might survive. * Always keep your word of honor.

You are also expected to ensure that all of your subordinates ("minions") obey this code, and to discipline them if they do not. Note that other "dishonorable" actions, including attacks from ambush, torture of captured spies, and the use of poison, are perfectly permissible under your code. If you violate this code in a minor way (GM discretion) you lose all remaining usages of your Exceptional Leadership class ability for the day. Severe violations cause you to lose your Exceptional Leadership and Uttercold Assault! class features until you Atone. As long as you are known to keep to your code you are entitled to a +2 bonus to your Leadership score, stacking with other leadership bonuses.

I noticed that the OP was asking how to make the necromancer feel comfortable with what he's doing, but it seems like everyone just created ways for the society on a whole to not feel guilty about the entire experience. In this way it won't become necessary for the Necromancers to have a code of conduct, because they're simply following societal norms regarding disturbing of the dead.

>Captured foes may not be summarily slain. You are permitted to test their worthiness by placing them in elaborate conditions almost certain to kill them, as long as those of sufficient character or cleverness might survive.

Let's say you have a collection of feuding lords or nations. Perhaps it's ok to reanimate your own family/clan's dead, but killing and raising others is tantamount to stealing valuable resources? Basically, each ruling family would employ its own necromancers, who draw from the deceased of that clan's serfs (and turn the ruling class' dead into powerful, sentient undead). But when times got hard, you'd try to steal (kill and raise) your enemies' serfs, leading to various conflicts of grudges and vendettas and so on. Necromancers would form their own class in society, providing support in the forms of labour and warriors. You might even get secret "necro-ninjas" who sabotage or assassinate the undead of their lord's enemies.

I'm trying to imagine what an "honourable" necromancer would act like. Not only in mercy towards one's enemies and whatnot, but also vengeance killings and so forth. "My name is Kelbourn Shadowsworn. You reanimated my father. Prepare to die"?

Well, ok, let's see. Let's lift from Usagi Yojimbo and see how it changes when we have a necromancer.

Usagi was his lord's personal bodyguard; the equivalent would be someone who provides the high-class undead that are used by the ruling family. So as well as being very skilled, he'd be good at making undead that look good. Since many of those undead would be elite guards, he would also have some military experience; he might even act as form of necromancer general, acting in charge of lower-ranked necromancers. He defends his lord's interests and life with his own and that of others, and must act with honour and respect at all times as fitting a representative of his clan.

Usagi becomes a ronin when his lord loses a battle and dies; he fights his way free with his lord's head so that it won't be put on a pike. An equivalent necromancer would have been reanimating the enemy's dead as common zombies and their own dead as more powerful, honoured troops. With his lord dead and his army routed, the necromancer would escape with the body as quickly as possible in order to prevent his lord being reanimated as a mindless ghoul (which, for the upper classes, would be a terrible insult). No longer having access to lots of resources, the necromancer would probably try to see his lord's body buried somewhere rather than keeping it as a servant. And then... A masterless necromancer would probably be very much feared by most of the populace, but respected.

I'm wondering what necromancer duels would be like. With corpses being a valuable resource, it wouldn't be allowed to waste a bunch of perfectly good cadavers just to show each other up. Perhaps a more traditional wizard's battle using non-dead-raising necromancy spells, draining each other's life and so on?

I had bureaucratic necromancers in a game once. Since people still kinda didn't like them, they had to purchase corpses, so they were constantly low on materials. A few went after graveyards, random murders, etc., that didn't cover the most draining bit: Infighting with other necromancers. So instead they had displays of control instead of all-out necromancer war. Yes,that's what I was thinking.

What to do with the corpses:Commoners and enemy field troops: Zombies and Skeletons, given old field-grade equipment if any.Your own field troops and enemy higher-ups: Greater undead, such as ghouls and mummies, which would then be equipped with decent field-grade equipment.Your own generals/leaders: Liches, Vampires, Devourers, whatever. Greater HD undead with the very best in armor and so forth.Their generals/leaders: Either returned to their home countries, or turned into non-combative undead servants as powerful undead tend to remember who they were. Perhaps invent an undead servitor race. They could be dressed up in clothing that would denote them as 'special servants', and would retain a degree of intelligence and even memory but would lack loyalty to their old country, and would lack anything close to ambition so as not to pose a threat.

I'd suggest bronze-plating their heads to preserve their appearance for posterity, and then they would be kept in a museum-tomb as trophies, where they would unlive out their existences playing strategy games or some such against one another. Particularly bright ones would be used as courtiers, advisors, or teachers to the royal household.

>>3502773I like this idea. The "Nameless" undead could be made more unsettling, because no one knows who they are. No one wants to see their little sister's zombified corpse attached to numerous others and tearing through ranks of enemy lines. "Named" corpses are reanimated as simple footsoldiers and whatnot, because its the polite, respectful thing to do for the families.

>>3506067>I'd suggest bronze-plating their heads to preserve their appearance for posterity, and then they would be kept in a museum-tomb as trophies

Well, in an honor-bound society trophies are popular. If you kill a great samurai, you would keep his sword as proof of your deed. In a necromantic society, you'd keep the corpse as a trophy too.

Emperor's Aide, leading a group of visiting dignitaries through the palace:"As you can see, our country has a long and glorious military history. This is the great-spear wielded once by the fierce warlord Fo-Ran-Bu."

I've been wondering, if a society is focused around necromancy then they'd be quite focused on conservation of resources using every part of the corpse seeing as there is no taboo over doing so any more.

So what's stopping this nation of necromancers from making things like undead leather? Doesn't have to be made from humanoid skin although that's possible, just that leather works might have a few apprentice necros raising the leather to make it more durable or useful in some way. Like suits of armor that can contort and react to a blow to reduce the impact or have built in defenses like a layer of spines. Necro ships could have sails of undead skins that are water proof and remarkably flexible.

Bone could become a primary building material for certain items, too small for structures but undead bones could make up things like wagons or shields.

So what happens when an intelligent undead is too beat up to continue fighting/working/whatever? Put it down, so to speak? Stick it in a chair in a crypt somewhere so people can come to pay their respects to it?

>>3506265The intelligent dead have their head cut off and sent home where they act as the guardians of the family or can be mounted at key points to act as watchmen. They have the right to request a final death once they have lost the ability to move by themselves.

Awesome thread, but I don't follow the comparison between warrior-aristocrats and S&S necromancers.

They strike me as more akin to the apothecaries who sold poisons They're social outcasts, and they have no need to view themselves as noble or to compensate for anything.

Now, if your culture has a necromancer-aristocracy? Then perhaps, yes, some sort of necroshido would develope. Possibly. Keep in mind that necromancers are wizards and are thus highly intelligent (and, by the time they finish training, highly jaded).

Well, it could be conceivable to repair them using parts from other corpses. But I'd imagine it'd be possible for sentient undead to say "ok, that's it, I'm done" and choose to die for reals. There'd probably be some really elaborate funeral ceremony, with the bonus that they're still around for it. Perhaps a "last hearing", speaking to their friends and family and comrades, then a dignified procession down into the crypt, sitting down in a stone throne or lying alongside their ancestors, until finally the necromancer in charge of the funeral leans in and... just gently shuts their eyes.

In a military culture, though, they'd probably want to go out fighting or something. Perhaps take some magic item that lets them explode, and then kamikaze the enemy?

Which, then, would make them more akin to siege engineers or weaponsmiths.

The samurai class (and as a consequence bushido) arises from the need for a warrior-noble to marshal troops: a leader they can identify with and a warrior they can look up to. Someone to "lead from the front" as it were.

But necromancers don't actually fight (at least any moreso than any other wizards).

But you need a necromancer to "lead" undead troops, to repair them, and the more developed your "necrotech" is (to the point of reanimating rhinos as siege engines, for example, or modifying corpses for battle), the more necromancers you need. You'd need necromancers who can liase with living troops, understand military strategy and have knowledge of how to counter various enemy strategies that use both living and unliving forces. And if the amount of troops each necromancer can control is limited (as it would be in D&D), then you need a heirarchy of necromancers stretching from field commanders to generals, overseeing the army as whole. And all those necromancers had best be capable warriors in their own right, since they'll need to protect themselves from the enemy.

Such necromancers would probably develop skills with other military magic as well, making them useful for the whole army.

Hmm. It'd be better for the society if they were available for advice in emergencies, perhaps only to necromancers. I'm thinking of a Star Wars comic, here, where Palpatine goes into a crypt to speak to the spirits of previous Sith Lords, and they're all like "oh it's you, you ready to come sit with us yet Siddy?". I dunno, though, is there any way for undead to achieve something like sleep?

Death Gate Cycle, book three: Fire Seaby Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_Gate_CycleThere, read the portion about Abarrach, the world of Stone.

This all doesn't really add to the topic of the thread, but it's interesting stuff for those who are into Necromancy.The dead are used as a workforce, military, and whatever command you can put into their simple mind. Everyone who dies, is resurrected as a corpse, no matter if he is your king or one of the necromancers themselves. Except the children, I'm not sure.Fuck, now I want an rpg-system based on Death Gate.Gimme that rune magic of yours ;__;

I would tend to make it more of a combination between the Bushido code and the Hypocratic oath. I would also go so far as to say give healing spells back to necromancers if they say... give up their extra spell or something (and necromancers only). This makes necromancers more interesting, in the long run.

Alternately Make a set of spells like "Delay wounds." These would "cure" 1d6+caster level points of damage, but these healed points return in fifteen rounds.

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